1. Field of the Invention
Embodiments disclosed herein relate to the use of wireless beacons in point of purchase (“POP”) displays to facilitate the delivery of consumer oriented content to mobile devices. Certain embodiments relate to systems and methods for transferring data between wireless beacons, POP displays, mobile devices, wireless network gateways, and remote servers.
2. Description of the Relevant Art
POP (“point of purchase”) displays are often used in retail environments to display content for particular products associated with the POP displays. POP displays typically include signs, graphics, or other marketing materials that communicate information about associated products and are intended to draw a shopper's (e.g., customer's) attention to the products associated with the displays. POP displays may be used as integral components for marketing or promotional campaigns. POP displays often contribute to the success of these campaigns.
Traditional POP display signage, which runs the gamut from a simple plastic holder for a card with product information to illuminated translucent graphic films in an atmospheric light box, are static in nature and are unable to customize the information conveyed to a potential customer based upon the customer's interest level. Other conventional POP display signage may include video displays that offer limited interactive options. Thus, there is a need for POP displays that are capable of dynamically interacting with potential customers. The manufacture, distribution, and/or deployment in retail settings of multiple POP displays, however, poses unique challenges, especially when the ability to dynamically interact with potential customers is included with the POP displays. Developments in mobile device technology and mobile communication technology allows for dynamic interaction with potential customers in retail environment.
Beacons are among the most important new mobile technologies helping merchants engage with consumers via mobile communication while the consumers are in brick and mortar stores. For many years, near field communication (NFC) was considered to be the technology that would deliver such data to retailers and help them track how customers behave in-store. NFC, however, has reached certain limits and beacons (and beacon technology) provides increased potential for providing customer engagement to shoppers in store environments.
Beacons may be low-cost devices that communicate with mobile device (e.g., smartphone) apps through a Bluetooth signal. Beacons are expected to directly influence over $4 billion worth of US retail sales this year at top retailers (0.1% of the total), and that number may climb tenfold in 2016. Current beacon implementations are relatively crude and typically broadcast the same, static content (e.g., a coupon, regardless of circumstances or a potential customer's demonstrated intent). Beacon technology has enormous potential to enhance the shopping experience. For example, beacon technology may make it quicker and easier for customers to access the information and products they are looking for or provide special offers or discounts to loyal shoppers. Beacon technology can also provide retailers with invaluable data about their customers' shopping habits as well as the activity of their staff. Thus, retailers may make improvements to the store layout by identifying store flow, maintaining service standards, and maintaining operations that will benefit both customer and retailer. Current implementations of beacon technology, however, have failed to develop a more dynamic set of interactions with potential customers, particularly those which are based on and distinguish between various location-based actions.
There has been some development in the use of beacon technology in store (customer) environments, however, the implementation of beacon technology remains limited.
United States Patent Application Publication No. 2015/0287045, filed Apr. 6, 2015 by Brown et al., which is incorporated by reference as if fully set forth herein, describes a “system for monitoring compliance with a retail display program includes a beacon coupled to a promotional display structure.” The system includes a “computing device [that] is configured to compare the location-specific data and time stamp to the specified retail facility and time period to determine whether the promotional display structure is displayed in the specified retail facility during the specified time period.” The system in Brown, however, requires that “Each promotional display structure 20 is intended to be displayed at a specified retail facility 50. Moreover, in the example embodiment, each promotional display structure 20 is intended to be displayed at a specified location 60 within specified retail facility 50.” Thus, the system of Brown requires that the intended location of each “promotional display structure” be known before the display structures are sent to their locations so that compliance of the structure (e.g., is it displayed in the correct location) may be determined. However, as is known in the art of promotional displays, it can often be very difficult and cumbersome to ensure and know the intended locations of promotional displays. For example, a large set of identical promotional displays are often sent to a warehouse for storage before being randomly sent out to retail locations without any thought being given as to the intended location for each specific promotional display. Further, multiple locations within a retail location may be intended for a given display once it reaches the retail location.
United States Patent Application Publication No. 2014/0282620, filed Mar. 15, 2013 by Nuovo et al., which is incorporated by reference as if fully set forth herein, states: “detecting an advertised device identifier and comparing the detected device identifier with device identifiers stored on the mobile device. If there is a match, the match can trigger an event. The event can be requesting content associated with the matched device identifier, receiving the requested content, and rendering the received content. The requested content can be selected to have additional, corresponding content downloaded and rendered.” This identification is done by “an application that operates on a mobile device. When executed, the application can cause the mobile device to search for device identifiers, e.g., media access controller addresses and/or broadcast identifiers (IDs), which are advertised by wireless beacon units, such as WiFi beacon units and Bluetooth beacon units.”
United States Patent Application Publication No. 2002/0176388 filed Mar. 19, 2002, by Rankin and Simons, which is incorporated by reference as if fully set forth herein, describes a centralized system for updating beacons. The system includes “a modification to the Bluetooth system to enable the connectionless broadcast of short messages from Bluetooth beacons. This can be achieved by exploiting the Bluetooth Inquiry phase by extending the very short ID packet sent out during this mode and using the extra space thus gained to carry a small amount of information. This information can be Bluetooth system related data or one-way application data. This scheme has the potentially useful feature of being backwards-compatible with legacy Bluetooth devices that are not able to understand this extra field.”
United States Patent Application Publication No. 2002/0183004 filed Mar. 15, 2002, by Fulton et al., which is incorporated by reference as if fully set forth herein, describes specialized beacons that are dedicated to either inquiries or transmitting information to a client.
United States Patent Application Publication No. 2007/0254670, filed May 1, 2006, “System and method for optimizing throughput in a wireless network,” by Kawaguchi and Le, which is incorporated by reference as if fully set forth herein, discusses throttling bandwidth within a mesh network. For example, “When the switch 10 determines that a selected mesh node is utilizing a portion of the bandwidth outside of the predetermined threshold range, the switch 10 executes a predetermined action (e.g., throttling) on transmissions from the selected node to provide increased bandwidth to mesh nodes further from the switch 10 than the selected node.”
WIPO Patent Application WO/2013/054144, “Method of Estimating the Position of a User Device Using Radio Beacons and Radio Beacons Adapted to Facilitate the Methods of the Invention” by Usman, et al., which is incorporated by reference as if fully set forth herein, discloses methods for “calculating an estimate of the position of the user device taking into account transmit power data concerning the transmit power level of the one or more said radio beacons . . . ” Page 2, lines 16-18.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,571,279, issued to Herz et al., which is incorporated by reference as if fully set forth herein, discloses location based services, but more from the perspective of a cellular network. It states, “The operation of the location enhanced information delivery system as described herein makes use of the fact that each user has a ‘beacon’, which generally serves as a user identification instrumentality. The beacons emit identifiers which can be used to associate users with the detected devices. The beacon can be correlated with location, such as by use of a wireless subscriber station or other systems with known technology.”
United States Patent Application Publication No. 2014/0358666, “Cross-Channel Personalized Promotion Platform,” by Baghaie and Dempski, which is incorporated by reference as if fully set forth herein, describes a platform for allowing advertisers to purchase promotional opportunities on user's mobile devices.
United States Patent Application Publication No. 2012/0315839, “Analyzing Audiences at Public Venues,” by Mumcuoglu and Engel, which is incorporated by reference as if fully set forth herein, discusses the use of wireless signals to physically locate a user but does not discuss the utilization of that information in real time to transmit pertinent information to that user.
Despite the previous disclosures described above, there remains many needs related to the concepts of adjusting or “throttling” a connection (or a transmission), determination of bumping, or the notions of pushing or pulling content beyond generic downloading of specific content from a centralized server as discussed herein. In addition, there is still a need for monitoring surrounding activity and assessing user locations and/or display locations. In certain applications, transmissions (or connections) may need to be throttled with respect to a specific location (e.g., a point of sale). In some applications, there is a need for the content transmitted over that connection to be varied in relation to either the throttling or determined range. Thus, there are still improvements needed in the application of beacon technology to engage with customers during their in-store shopping experience and for supporting customers' in-store shopping experiences.